Hi,
I’m considering to buy an old Thinkpad t460s (i5-6300U, 20GB RAM) to use qubes.
Is this laptop still powerful enough in 2023?
I will use qubes to edit some documents, edit some simple pictures, run VPN, browse the webpage, etc. Typically 4 to 7 virtual machines are running.
Short answer: Yes, it’s powerful enough.
Long answer: Plenty of RAM but might be slow on browsing due to the older processor. It’s better to use Brave instead of Firefox because Brave is faster.
If I were in your shoes, I would choose a second-hand T480 with a 4-core CPU instead.
As @kommuni mentioned, a ThinkPad T480 with a 4-core CPU is a preferable choice. The ThinkPads with an s at the end of the model are intended to be more “portable” and less performant. A ThinkPad T460s is probably not worth your time (with Qubes or any other OS).
The specs are very similar to what I have in my current laptop. It’s usable, but it’s hard to be productive on it. Don’t spend too much on it, especially if the screen is less than 1080p.